The minister selected was a certain Baron Asperen de Langerac, wholly unversed in diplomacy or other public affairs, with abilities not above the average.  A series of questions addressed by him to the Advocate, the answers to which, scrawled on the margin of the paper, were to serve for his general instructions, showed an ingenuousness as amusing as the replies of Barneveld were experienced and substantial.

In general he was directed to be friendly and respectful to every one, to the Queen-Regent and her counsellors especially, and, within the limits of becoming reverence for her, to cultivate the good graces of the Prince of Conde and the other great nobles still malcontent and rebellious, but whose present movement, as Barneveld foresaw, was drawing rapidly to a close.  Langerac arrived in Paris on the 5th of April 1614.

Du Maurier thought the new ambassador likely to “fall a prey to the specious language and gentle attractions of the Due de Bouillon.”  He also described him as very dependent upon Prince Maurice.  On the other hand Langerac professed unbounded and almost childlike reverence for Barneveld, was devoted to his person, and breathed as it were only through his inspiration.  Time would show whether those sentiments would outlast every possible storm.

CHAPTER X

Weakness of the Rulers of France and England—­The Wisdom of Barneveld inspires Jealousy—­Sir Dudley Carleton succeeds Winwood—­ Young Neuburg under the Guidance of Maximilian—­Barneveld strives to have the Treaty of Xanten enforced—­Spain and the Emperor wish to make the States abandon their Position with regard to the Duchies—­ The French Government refuses to aid the States—­Spain and the Emperor resolve to hold Wesel—­The great Religious War begun—­The Protestant Union and Catholic League both wish to secure the Border Provinces—­Troubles in Turkey—­Spanish Fleet seizes La Roche—­Spain places large Armies on a War Footing.

Few things are stranger in history than the apathy with which the wide designs of the Catholic party were at that moment regarded.  The preparations for the immense struggle which posterity learned to call the Thirty Years’ War, and to shudder when speaking of it, were going forward on every side.  In truth the war had really begun, yet those most deeply menaced by it at the outset looked on with innocent calmness because their own roofs were not quite yet in a blaze.  The passage of arms in the duchies, the outlines of which have just been indicated, and which was the natural sequel of the campaign carried out four years earlier on the same territory, had been ended by a mockery.  In France, reduced almost to imbecility by the absence of a guiding brain during a long minority, fallen under the distaff of a dowager both weak and wicked, distracted by the intrigues and quarrels of a swarm of self-seeking grandees, and with all its offices, from highest to lowest, of court,